I'm going to start this review off with what I liked about this book: The premise had so much potential. I thought Pax was funny.

Now on to everything I didn't like: -Darrow is a Gary Stu, and he knows and is proud of it. He’s constantly bragging about his abilities, looks, smarts, etc. -He’s always going on about how hot and how much he loves his fourteen-year-old wife -There is so much misogyny in this book: -The use of rape and sexual assault as motivation/anger fuel for Darrow and the other men -The way said rap and sexual assault was handled by Darrow (i.e. bringing it to the attention of everyone, and pulling Nyla into the spotlight to do it -Trying to justify Titus raping everyone because he had to watch someone he loved get raped?????? -Everyone just forgives Tactus for it because he received a punishment????? -Using “like a girl” as an insult -Since Mustang is female, and not the ArchGovernor’s son, the Proctors were absolutely ok with kidnapping, poisoning, etc. They only cared about his son, not his daughter -Gold women are still weak and oppressed by men -He sees himself as some god come from on high to save everyone because he knows hardship, so he’s automatically better than everyone -So many made-up words with no explanation or even context at some times -Does the author have a piss kink? -There’s an entire race of people that are literally just sex slaves, and it’s fine and ok?? Darrow gets mad at the rape and sexual assault of Golds, but if it’s a Pink, it’s ok??? -He was chosen to help fight (and represent) a cause he didn’t even agree with and comes out believing he’s humanity’s last hope -He’s never been educated, yet he’s the most intelligent person of the 1200 students chosen for the Institute because he has street smarts -He “learns quickly” how to swim and has zero problem -The Golds in the Institute are all boys/girls/children because they haven’t faced true hardship, even at the end of the book, when, I’m pretty sure they all endured the same thing. All Reds are men and women, even if they’re only fourteen -Everyone idolizes him??? How does no one hate his guts???? -The narration said “drunker than Narol on Yuletide” twice in as many pages -Pacing was bad: some things went on forever, and others were two sentences even though it was a decent chunk of time -Eo was a “martyr,” but they kill Reds all the time, and no one of import really noticed. Mustang only noticed the song, and she could barely remember it or the context (she said she heard it on the HC) -He finally learns what justice is, but as soon as something bad happens, he goes right back into vengeance mode -So many “important” characters died off-screen without explanation -Darrow forgot about his cause and his wife so many times just to talk about how great he is and how much he wants to win and shove it in the Golds’ faces -No emotional depth; I had no emotional stakes, and didn’t care for any of the characters -Was Mustang being the Jackal’s sister supposed to be a twist??? -It was all tell and no show -The author is (or was trying to make Darrow) an edgelord. It comes off so strongly in the writing -The book is supposed to be about freeing the oppressed and standing up to the authority, but it’s actually about Darrow being super cool and smart and handsome and strong -There is no hook in this story. The only reason I kept reading it was because I had to. I wanted to put it down after the first few pages, and it did not get better -Short sentences. Only short sentences. No rhythm -The Greek/Latin stuff is really overdone -Darrow thinks Mustang betrayed him just because he found out she was the Jackal’s brother, but when she actually betrays her brother, it’s all good. She’s not even mad at him for doubting her -Darrow doesn’t struggle at all in adapting to life as a Gold (because when he was a Red, he already thought he was all that) -How many times does the word “slave” need to be said? Casually referring to his peers as slaves as if that’s a normal thing to do -They were told ideally they wouldn’t kill each other, but they all took that to mean battle to the death -Titus being a Red was never touched upon again. Darrow just accepts the fact and moves on once he’s dead -All “plot twists” (i.e. Titus beind Red, Mustang being Jackal’s sister) weren’t unexpected because we knew next to nothing about either character -We knew Titus was cruel and angry -We knew Mustang was weak because she’s a woman, but if she was a man, she’d be a great leader -A lot of chunks like “this happened to this House. This happened to these people.” Telling the reader what happened instead of us reading it for ourselves -Darrow finds out Mustang (the girl he fell in love with after his wife died, and he tried to kill himself over) is the ArchGovernor’s daughter (the man who ordered his wife dead), and he suddenly thought that Mustang is the ArchGovernor, and she wanted Eo to die -I don’t know what anyone looked like other than: -Darrow is oh-so handsome -Cassius looks like a god -Pax is a titan -Sevro is short -Mustang is beautiful and also short -Eo is pretty and has red hair -Fitchner looks like an old war general guy?

I have been once again burned by a beautiful cover. There was so much going on in this book, but none of it made me care about any of the characters. Corin spent the entire time being an edgelord. Sure, she's got stuff going on, but reading through her narration was just a mass of "everything is garbage and I must make it garbage for everyone else too." I also didn't care about Amelia as a character because we weren't really give anything to even try to care about. Malicine was cool sometimes.

It felt like there were too many new plot points coming up very late in the book that were added just for flavour because the author was running out of ideas on how to finish it. I say this, but it is not a plot driven book; it's very much a character driven one, but as I mentioned before, I just simply didn't care. Amelia's development wasn't so much "development" as it was she was at Point A, and by the end, she's at Point B. How she got there? I don't know. With the way the book ended, any development Corin had (basically the same as Amelia) was made pointless. There was a whole sequence near the end where everything in the dream started to disappear and/or die, and honestly, I was way more upset about Penny and Dime than I was for literally anything else that happened the entire book. There was weirdly a bit of romance thrown in that made absolutely no sense. There was no chemistry between Corin and Amelia and nothing to indicate interest between them, but they randomly kiss. Was there a reason for it other than what Pham thought the reader would want? Honestly, I would have been less surprised if the "romance" was between Malicine and either Corin or Amelia. They actually interacted more than a small handful of times.

I also don't know why we needed two epilogues. Amelia's epilogue would have been sufficient as we can clearly see that change had been made, and the world Corin came from would be different. Both epilogues did make it feel like the rest of the story was pointless. Like yes, it enabled Amelia to take action, but all the conflict and stakes the entire time just vanished as if they never existed. I think I would have enjoyed this a lot more if it focused on Amelia and Malicine without even having Corin.

As for the writing, it was a bit hard to tell due to listening to the audiobook, but practically every sentence was a metaphor. Not everything that's sharp needs to be compared to a knife! The landscape and vibes of the dream world were beautiful, but I genuinely couldn't tell if I got that from Pham's descriptions or from my own imagination/desire for it to be beautiful. There were a lot of lines throughout that felt like quotes that you would see on a moody teens Tumblr in 2012, but they all felt disconnected from each other. It was like being bombarded with lines the author was hoping would make it to social media without her putting thought in how to make them work in context.

I'm usually a fan of fairy tale retellings, but oh my, this one was a failure.

The only reason I finished this book was because at times it felt like a DCOM they would play all throughout October. I could enjoy it as a campy novel, but there was also so much I had problems with that it couldn't be redeemed in my eyes. It was so obviously written by a man with each sister only having one defining trait (brains, talent, beauty respectively), and the theme of boy-craziness throughout the book. Veronica was clearly anorexic and nobody cared and they even made fun of her for it or called her beautiful because of it. The most effort put in was Esme telling her to eat once. In addition to this, she was only fourteen, yet she was the beautiful, seductive one?????? SHE'S FOURTEEN! There was an entire chapter dedicated to Katy having been cursed with extreme flatulence for the day, and the solution was to stick her ass out the window??????? One of the jocks discovers he's gay after a moment of clarity and all of a sudden he's talking like a caricature of a gay man, throwing around "honey" and fashion insults as if he'd always spoken like that. Don't even get me started on the contract demon, Shikker. If you ever wanted to know the epitome of Jewish stereotyping, it's him. Like, I'm fully convinced Bloom had no awareness when making these characters, there's no way. The book literally ends with Esme being so disgusted by Norman's appearance, that she forces him to drink a beauty potion so she can date him. She also makes herself take a love potion so she'll love him despite his appearance because she likes his personality (even though the potion was a dud). How is this good messaging??????

To say something positive, there were some funny lines in here (mostly from Kasha), but they definitely don't make up for the rest of the book.